Tag Archives: Interdicted World I-2796-893-44

Ghost Ship – Chapter 39

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which there is good news and bad news.

Win Ton also knows who Clarence was, which is perhaps not surprising, since Win Ton is a Scout and the Scouts might be expected to have known who was doing what in their home port. What might be surprising is that, knowing who Clarence was, he’s so quick to trust him; part of that is probably that Theo trusts him, but it might also speak to a detailed knowledge of Clarence’s past: merely knowing Clarence’s old job description would probably be a count against him, but there have been better people and worse people to hold that job, and someone familiar with Clarence’s track record would know which side of the scale he was on.

Meanwhile, back on Surebleak, that quiet haven Theo was thinking fondly of while her crew were trying not to get blown up, Val Con has a metaphorical bombshell of his own to deal with…

I Dare – Chapter 39

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Day 52
Standard Year 1393

Department of Interior Command Headquarters
Liad

In which an appropriate moment has arrived.

Here’s an important detail: Commander of Agents recalls an exercise he was taught many years ago as an Agent-in-training. What this tells us is that the Department has been around a long time, and that this Commander of Agents is not the first person to have been in command of it. (If the nature of the training given to Agents is not a recent innovation, it also suggests the disturbing idea that although he is now in command, to some extent he’s acting as a puppet of some long-dead Commander of times past.)

There are some cracks appearing in the Commander’s all-business persona. Have we ever before seen him say anything as vituperative as he does about Anthora here?

I Dare – Chapter 24

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Day 50
Standard Year 1393

Lytaxin
Erob’s Clanhouse and Garden

In which kin share news of kin.

The bit about Shan and Nova having different preferred languages for casual speech is a nice reflection of the fact their lives have taken different paths despite them being siblings. Shan was raised as a Terran among Terrans for the first few years of his life, and although he’s embraced his Liaden heritage, he spends much of his time as a Trader out in the wide universe and often surrounded by Terrans again. Nova was born and raised on Liad, and her line of work keeps her there for the most part; she must have left the planet a few times, if only to earn her pilot’s licence, but this here may well be the furthest she’s ever been from home.

I’m not sure I understand how Val Con knew about his mother, but I don’t feel too bad about that because it sounds like Val Con isn’t too sure himself.

Plan B – Chapter 1

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Liad
Department of Interior Command Headquarters

In which the Commander of Agents reviews the situation.

A new book. After two months with Partners in Necessity sitting by my elbow, it feels a bit weird to look down and see Plan B instead.

This first chapter is mostly recap, which makes sense for the first Liaden novel to be published in a decade, even if it’s not obviously useful to a fan who’s just finished re-reading Carpe Diem.

There is some new information slipped in amid the recap: the military action on Lytaxin was mentioned in Agent of Change when the Gyrfalks shipped out to it, but this is the first time it’s been said that it was set off by the Department in an attempt to deprive Korval of its ally Erob.

The recap also mentions that Korval has disappeared lock, stock and barrel, “ship, children, servants, and pets”; it struck me on this re-read that we’ve since had a short story about where the children went, but they didn’t have any servants or pets with them — so where did the servants and pets go?

Carpe Diem – Chapter 62

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In which Tyl Von sig’Alda makes an approach.

sig’Alda is demonstrating a very closed-minded attitude here: instead of paying attention to new information and adjusting his theories and plans, he’s holding on to his theories and plans and taking in only what information fits what he already believes he knows. Some of it’s definitely indoctrination, like the way he shies away from the possibility that Val Con might be consciously and happily free of the Department’s influence, and some of it is… probably at least partly due to indoctrination, like the way he dismisses everything any Terran does as an irrelevant distraction. But I’m not sure that explains the way he seems to have accepted certain things as facts when they were only ever presented as plausible theories, like Miri’s supposed drug addiction.

One way and another, his inability or disinclination to accept new information is going to come back and bite him sooner or later, when reality fails to match the contents of his head. The question is how much damage he’s going to do before then, trying to impose the contents of his head on reality.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 60

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Interdicted World I-2796-893-44

In which Tyl Von sig’Alda comes to Winterfair.

Tyl Von sig’Alda’s impressions of Winterfair are a contrast to Miri’s a few chapters ago. They’re seeing many of the same things, but reacting to them very differently. That even extends to the dateline at the head of the chapter: sig’Alda knows the local name of the planet, but he’s not going to lower himself to using it.

I wonder if sig’Alda was a Scout before he was recruited by the Department; not all the pilots taken by the Department were. His reactions here are certainly not those a Scout would have, but that just brings us back around to the question of how much of his attitude is him and how much was instilled in him by his Department indoctrination.

And once again, the child he encounters is not given any gendered pronouns, and nor is the child’s parent — but, where it felt earlier like the authors were leaving room for the reader’s imagination, here it feels like the reason their genders are not noted is because sig’Alda doesn’t see them as human enough to care.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 45

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Orbit
Interdicted World I-2796-893-44

In which Tyl Von sig’Alda plans an invasion.

Somehow, the “invading Vandar” joke is less amusing applied to Agent of Change sig’Alda than it was with Val Con and Miri back at the beginning of the novel.

With all the information at his disposal, sig’Alda’s best guess at Val Con’s choice of landing place is wrong. It’s unlikely to be because of Val Con being in no hurry to get back to the Department, because that’s a possibility sig’Alda is keeping very much in mind. A more likely factor is Miri: one of the reasons Val Con chose to land somewhere remote and pick up the local customs gradually before striking out for the big city and the big radios was because Miri doesn’t have his training and he didn’t want to throw her in the deep end. That’s a consideration that sig’Alda is unlikely to have given due weight in his analysis; he’ll have noticed that Miri doesn’t have the training, but the idea that Val Con might defer to her inexperience is the kind of thing he doesn’t think of. In fact, with all the assessing of Val Con’s actions he does, he doesn’t think of Miri even once this chapter.

sig’Alda’s comparison between the local language and Liaden, which finds Liaden a superior language for establishing precedence and for insulting people in, tells us something about the Liaden language. That he considers this a sign that the local language is faulty and its speakers primitive and ignorant tells us something about sig’Alda.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 42

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The Garbage Run

In which Shadia Ne’Zame’s garbage run is enlivened with a mystery.

Several circumstances converged to produce this event. If the Bassilan rebels had not attacked and inspired the militia to go searching the hills, the yacht would still be resting on the ground, and there would have been nothing in orbit to tell Shadia that anything interesting had occurred.

I wonder if Val Con has thought about the possibility of the yacht being spotted by a Scout patrol. I don’t get the impression he has, though as a Scout he presumably knows the patrols exist; perhaps he’s had his mind on more immediate concerns. Or perhaps he’s thought about it, but realised that even if a Scout did find the yacht, they would do as Shadia did here, and he and Miri would be no closer to rescue. He might have done something about that, if the relaunching of the yacht hadn’t been so hurried; perhaps he could have left a message in the yacht before sending it up, explaining the situation. But then, the situation being what it is, he could well have been reluctant to send a message out into the universe without being sure who would find it or what response it would have.

For that matter, the situation being what it is, it’s not yet clear what response Shadia’s report back to base will have…

Carpe Diem – Chapter 10

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Orbit
Interdicted World I-2796-893-44

In which Miri and Val Con make landfall.

The “Dictionary of Phrase and Fable” Miri recalls is likely to be a descendant of the one published in the 19th century by E. Cobham Brewer, which has been a friend to many an author since. The 1896 edition, the last on which Brewer himself worked, is available online: here is the front page and here is the entry on “carpe diem”.

Although some details will be forthcoming later, we never have got the full story of how Val Con came to converse with an Yxtrang, though the authors have made a number of attempts at setting it out. On Splinter Universe, the website where the authors talk about paths not taken and stories never completed, there’s a post about that, but the link might be better saved for the next time the topic arises.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 8

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Orbit
Interdicted World I-2796-893-44

In which Miri and Val Con plan an invasion.

Ooh, foreshadowing.

Val Con’s concern that Miri might find his scar repellant is another of those moments that has extra resonance if you know things that haven’t been said in this novel. Injuries that mark the face are particularly distressing to Liadens, as we’ve seen in “Phoenix” (and as we’ll see in future when Val Con is among Liadens again).